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An anonymous reader writes "The smartphone and tablet rivals will work with a mediator in an effort to settle their patent disputes in advance of a second trial on the issues scheduled for this spring, according to Bloomberg News. The agreement, filed in federal court in San Jose today, was in response to U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh's request in November that both sides submit a settlement discussion proposal before trial. Senior legal executives at the companies met Jan. 6 to discuss 'settlement opportunities,' according to the proposal. The companies agreed to retain a mediator 'who has experience mediating high profile disputes,' according to the filing, which doesn't name the person. The chief executive officers and three to four company lawyers, but no outside lawyers, will attend the mediation before Feb. 19, according to the filing."

All this is, for apple is a way to look like they are trying to do things in good faith. That is all this comes down to, they will do everything they can to stone wall things to make sure they go no where but only to a point to make it look like they were willing to try to make a deal.

Court documents revealed that Apple had offered to licence its patents to Samsung - allowing Samsung to produce perfectly-legal Apple-licenced phones and tablets - for $30 per phone and $40 per tablet.

Apple gets sued pretty frequently in US courts. More than pretty frequently, in fact. That tends to happen when you have products, have a lot of cash on hand, and don't, in fact, have a wall of invulnerability. I doubt they get significantly more help from the US government than any other Fortune 500 company.

I doubt they get significantly more help from the US government than any other Fortune 500 company.

So you think all american fortune 500 companies are allowed to ignore the rules and be protected by the administration:
Obama Administration Overrules iPhone Trade Ban [slashdot.org]. Maybe you are right, but that is a rather weak statement and unrelated to the post you were replying to. Apple do have the government in their pocket and no reason to discontinue their behaviour since they are protected from repercussions.

Well yeah, why not? Apple wanted to sell a product called iPad in a country where another company already had a trademark on the name. That company reached a court-mediated settlement under which Apple agreed to pay that company 60 million dollars for the right to use the name "iPad" in the region where the name was

If anything, there is entirely too much discussion on that topic, given the extremely minuscule ways customers have actually been impacted by any of this smartphone-related patent litigation. This is all about $$$, nothing else.

Because it is basically a gentleman's way between them where neither side wants to start invalidating patents too much else the other side comes back at their patents. Both sides want to basically "win" while retaining their own patents intact.

A "win" without holding a deck of patents at the end isn't a win for either of them.

You could also apply the basic premise of MAD during the cold war to this, but replace nukes with patent invalidation.

The Samsung IC business relationship between these two is an order of magnitude more important than any lost sales from competition. Whether or not they settle on silly frilly patent disputes will not change that fact one iota.

The Samsung IC business relationship between these two is an order of magnitude more important than any lost sales from competition. Whether or not they settle on silly frilly patent disputes will not change that fact one iota.

Samsung if anything is not stupid. They have leveraged OSS on just about every device they make, especially smart tvs. Funny but their lines like many others do include OSS licence links right through the menu options. My question is if they settle in a circle jerk with Apple will they then be given a free pass as the Rockstar Consortium starts to go after all the sheep that microsoft already have sheared or will the patent wars heat up instead? If Apple and the cooked up US justice system beats them up bad

Why the fear over Rockstar? What have they accomplished? For that matter, what did they accomplish when the name Nortel existed? My point is, all the patent fear you can dream up is still peanuts compared to say, Samsung possibly losing that iPhone processor socket over to TSMC. Which right now, is entirely not a real worry, since TSMC is in no position to meet Apple's product roadmap+Apple's product volumes+ Apple's product timeline. Therefore, Apple IS Samsung's customer, period. The litigation is j

this pissing contest has waged for 3 years now. whenever a clear victor is decided the judgement is appealed, and appealed again upon the overturn. your circle-jerk is an affront to the concept of justice.

we gave you assholes your own legal system called the arbitration. we gave it to you so you could fuck customers and avoid the repercussions of class action, but im telling you to pack your shit and go. Find an "arbitrator" or whatever it is you need and figure this out on your own, but I have real cou

There's a world of difference between mediation and binding arbitration. Regardless, any judge is supposed to be on the lookout for opportunities for settlements in civil actions, regardless the likelihood of appeals process.

Apple will settle and Samsung will be under NDA as to the details. THEN ALL HELL WILL break loose and it will be directed straight at all the companies that use OSS software for free the Linux kernel modules for exfat, ffmpeg extensions for aac+ and avchd, googles versions of the same codecs and all the other stuff that makes Android phones, smart tvs and the many millions of devices that use the linux kernel and OSS work. This time around the concerted attack will be by the ROCKSTAR CONSORTIUM which is th

There fixed that for you. And this is exactly why Google is leveraging their dominance in internet search to promote other options. Right now I can use Youtube without having to resort to FLASH. And more and more are heading towards an unencumbered standard for the web. THE PROBLEM IS the people at APPLE AND SONY are scared shitless about this turn of events. When the public finally figures out what is really going on then the same situation that occurred with Napster will happen to them. And this is the cr

This is hardly news. Mediation is typically always strongly recommended by the judge prior to trial. Either party refusing to attend would make them look bad in the judge's eyes. So whether or not they actually think it is worthwhile, they both attend. And then there is no resolution. And then the trial goes ahead as planned.

This is hardly news. Mediation is typically always strongly recommended by the judge prior to trial. Either party refusing to attend would make them look bad in the judge's eyes. So whether or not they actually think it is worthwhile, they both attend. And then there is no resolution. And then the trial goes ahead as planned.

Does anyone on Slashdot have access to some older engineering journals on touchscreens? I was under the impression that the Taipei geeks were fiddling with the touchpad and display screen markets, out of their niche in ATM touchscreen displays (which wealthy nations ignored), and that when they were contracted by Apple to make Ipads they said "hey, check this out, we put a screen on it. And you can attach at telephone". And Apple said "heck yah make that" but nothing kept Samsung from doing the same. But that's a general recollection, I don't want to be cited as a source.

But gee, I can spot a lot of lawyer history-rewrites on the internet. I just spent 10-15 minutes trying to track down the history of the development of "touchscreen" as it was attached to phones and tablets, and it's getting really hard to actually do any research on the web. The stakes in the legal patent claims seem to fan the rewriting of history on wikipedia and About.com (both with versions that I know aren't right, even if I'm not sure what IS right).

I'm not comfortable enough just from reading Digitimes for 12 years to be an expert in this, but when you read display news for 12 years you can at least spot bullshit in patent claims and wikipedia articles that are years out of sync. Anyone here have any real scoop on this that's not been rewritten by the Anglican Church? It's like all the "pagan" inventions are being turned into Christian patents.

Anyone here have any real scoop on this that's not been rewritten by the Anglican Church? It's like all the "pagan" inventions are being turned into Christian patents.

Not in a Church per se but perhaps there is proof elsewhere in a place many consider to be a similar place of pilgrimage and worship.

From what I read a primitive induction touch based device was found last week in Steve Jobs garage. It lights up as a display and only worked with one finger however, it was right beside his first attempt at a device that moved the curser and it looked strangely modern and only worked with one finger as well. This without a doubt is prior art in the technology of touch scree

I was under the impression that the Taipei geeks were fiddling with the touchpad and display screen markets, out of their niche in ATM touchscreen displays (which wealthy nations ignored), and that when they were contracted by Apple to make Ipads they said "hey, check this out, we put a screen on it. And you can attach at telephone". And Apple said "heck yah make that" but nothing kept Samsung from doing the same. But that's a general recollection, I don't want to be cited as a source.

Ok, if you go back to the telestrator, Leonard Reiffel gets the credit, from the 1950s. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/4247541 [popularmechanics.com] I'm intrigued by the Vancouver connection (Fingerworks)... Vancouver must be 1/3 Chinese/Taiwanese. That may be where the DNA mingled, most of the wealthier display device geeks I met had second homes or family in Vancouver. Interesting, Thanks for the lead.

Right, because all Android devices... Indeed, all non-iOS devices everywhere, are all made by Samsung. Those billions of dollars from Apple's processor business? Yup, let's just sneeze at that, as it's clearly inferior to whatever we can get competing against the Chinese in the Third World. We MUST have market share, margins and profits don't matter!!

Why does this read to me like "Apple and Samsung agree to stage mediation as a way to openly collude on ways to effectively split the market and work to eliminate competitors."

It seems like they can both take their long-term business strategies to the table and figure out a way to split the market for smartphones between themselves. Apple agrees to let Samsung use some trivial design elements, which gives Samsung some advantage over other Android makers who aren't part of this bargain, and Samsung largely

Always just presumed that legal fees spent on crap like this were just a way of swilling around the cash... It's an easy way for the two companies to endlessly exchange cash - by paying fines to each other and fees to lawyers that they own, no cash is really being generated but it is being shifted from one cost center to another.

I wonder if there is something on the horizon they have seen to do with patent trolling which is forcing them to attempt to change their seemingly childish ways and orchestrate a